Prologue
While the Friendship Games had ended with a lot of destruction, it had for once accomplished its stated goal of helping the two schools get along. Still, it was an awkward coterie of high school girls whom found themselves sitting around a large picnic blanket, spread out on the front lawn of Canterlot High School. On one side sat Sunset Shimmer and her five closest friends at Canterlot High. As if an invisible line demarcated the two groups, on the opposite end of the blanket sat Twilight Sparkle and the five girls she had grown close to at Crystal Prep. The only girl there who seemed to really be enthusiastically partaking in the food was Pinkie Pie, who had of course brought cupcakes with extra frosting.
“So, uh…When are they going to get that statue fixed?” Indigo Zap asked, the large horse statue still wrecked from the battle at the Friendship Games.
“Yeah, what she said! That thing was totes rad!” Lemon Zest added, wearing a set of headphones, listening to music with one ear while the other was uncovered.
“Not until I investigate the magical portal further and make sure it’s not damaged,” said Sunset Shimmer, crossing her arms. “The statue itself isn’t a portal to Equestria, but the base itself facing the school is. Dark magic like what Twilight was throwing around and the creation of several rifts in the immediate vicinity could have affected it.”
Sunny Flare, who had been busy playing a bit of cat’s cradle with some string she had brought along, perked up at that. “I still can’t believe magic really exists,” She commented, before sighing, beginning to daydream, “It’d be great to have magic like you guys do. Of course, I don’t think I could put up with being a pony in that other world of yours. I like having hands. Try doing this with hooves,” Sunny Flare wiggled her fingers to emphasise before tying the string up to create a diamond shape.
“Oh my, I’d think it’d be nice to be able to talk with all sorts of animals,” Fluttershy said in a quiet voice, petting Spike, the purple-and-green canine companion of Twilight Sparkle. “I wonder what Angel Bunny would say if he could talk.”
“Probably to tell you that your hands are the most divine thing ever,” Spike said as he wagged his tail, eliciting a giggle out of the pink-haired girl.
“Count me out!” Applejack exclaimed, “I work on a farm, y’know. I don’t think ah’d wanna hear the cows during their milking time, or the trees when we’re pickin’ apples.”
“Trees don’t talk in Equestria,” Sunset said, “Well…apple trees excluded, they tell you to go and eat pears instead.”
“What?!” Applejack looked aghast, eyes so wide that it looked like her freckles would disappear under the scrunched skin of her cheeks. “You’re not pullin’ my leg are you Sunset?”
“Seriously,” Sunset said in the most deadpan voice possible. She managed to hold a straight face for ten seconds before letting out a giggle, “Oh, your face! You should have seen it!”
“Aw, shucks!” Applejack said, burying her reddening face underneath her Stetson hat, as most of the rest of the girls joined in on Sunset’s laughter. Twilight Sparkle and Sour Sweet, who had been engaged in a quiet conversation to the side, both looked up, having missed the joke. Looking at one another, they shrugged. Lemon Zest had, for her part, been eating nacho chips with salsa, falling into the zen with her music. Crumbs dribbled down the side of her shirt as she was pulled out of the zone at the laughter.
Sunset Shimmer could see Rainbow Dash was about to make a comment. However, it never came, as she felt the magical portal behind her activate. Quickly turning around, she saw a familiar purple face come stumbling through the base of the shadow.
“Well that certainly didn’t just happen and fundamentally alter our perception of reality on a level that just seeing magical transformations didn’t before,” Sugarcoat mumbled.
“Sorry I’m late girls! I didn't get your messages until just now because I was caught in this time travel loop and honestly, it was the strangest thing that's ever happened to me!”
The girl whom Sunset had now dubbed in her head as Princess Twilight to separate from the human world’s version of Twilight paused, her eyes bulging as her line of sight locked with Science Twilight.
“Maaaaake that the second strangest, ehehe,” Princess Twilight giggled nervously.
Sunset thanked her former mentor that she had a quicker reaction time than Pinkie Pie did to this bizarre scenario, and grabbed the shell-shocked human Twilight’s hand, pulling her onto her feet. “Girls,” She said to the six students from Crystal Prep, “This is Princess Twilight Sparkle, also a pony from Equestria. Twilight, this is, er…” She fumbled about for a nickname, before settling on one, “Also Twilight Sparkle, and perhaps Science Twilight would be a good name before we all get confused.”
Then images crossed through Sunset’s mind of ‘Science Twilight’ cackling out loud in a giant laboratory, throwing aside a piece of cloth to reveal her latest doomsday device. She shivered, trying to suppress the surprisingly salacious images of Mad Scientist Twilight. Dr. Frankensparkle? Twilightstein? Sparklestone?
“Uh, er, hello, um, Twilight,” Princess Twilight said with a light blush in her cheek, rubbing her head in confusion before holding her hand out for what she had understood to be a common form of greeting in her last two trips to the human realm.
“Er, hello I guess?” Science Twilight responded, also seemingly unsure of what to do. Nevertheless, she too held her hand out to shake.
A sudden thought struck Sunset Shimmer, as she recalled a classic film she had once seen. She meant to yell ‘Don’t Cross the Streams!’ out loud, but all she could do was watch as time slowed to a crawl, the hands of counterparts reaching out to shake.
“So Griffons and Dragons and even Cerberuses are real things that exist and can talk in Equestria? That is like, so, COOL!” Indigo Zap gushed over the stories Sunset Shimmer and Princess Twilight Sparkle had been pressured into telling the other eleven humans.
“Yeah, and that Discord guy sounds hilarious!” Rainbow Dash added.
Sunset brushed away a non-existent drop of sweat, still feeling out of sorts from her earlier panic. Thankfully, the contact between counterparts of two separate dimensions hadn’t blown up all of existence. Even her theory that it may have been localised to their own dimension didn’t pan out, as nothing happened. There wasn’t even any visible sparks flying between the two Twilights’ hands, or any sort of mysterious sensation exchanged that would hint at a transfer of energy or emotions or memories that might destabilise the world or require somebody’s death or a memory wipe or the destruction of the portal. Not for once was she glad the movies were wrong.
However, it did spark an idea she had been forming in her head ever since the Sirens had been defeated, now that the main reason she had hesitated over doing it had been proven to not be a worry.
“Yes,” Princess Twilight said. “Spike here may be a dog, but if he were to go through the portal, he would be turned into a dragon. Spike, the Spike from Equestria that is, is just a baby by dragon standards, no more than three feet tall. I don’t know how old this Spike would be since the ages of people here and in Equestria don’t always line up.” Reaching out a hand to pet this different but similar Spike, she continued lecturing, “He might be a newborn dragon, maybe the same age as the Spike I know, or he could be several dozen feet tall instead.”
“I’d love to be several dozen feet tall,” Spike piped up. “Then Twilight wouldn’t have to carry me around, I could carry her around!”
“Yes, until everyone panics and phones in to the emergency hotlines about a twenty foot dragon flying around, or worse, they call the talk radios. You’d be too large to pet anymore, too” Sugarcoat said. She had gotten a little bit better with her blunt assessments since the end of the Friendship Games had jolted her out of her shell, trying not to be negative all the time. It was still a work in progress.
Spike whined a proper canine sound at that response, getting another pet out of both Fluttershy and Princess Twilight.
“It must be so cool to have wings all the time!” Rainbow Dash said. “I only get them here when I pony up. I’d love to be able to fly whenever I want instead. Then again, if I did have wings all the time, I couldn’t fly outside of campus anyways. Other people would see me,” She sighed.
Sunny Flare had a finger on her lips in quiet contemplation, but decided to be the next to talk, “Does anyone find it strange that we’re all so accepting that magic exists? Before we came here for the Friendship Games, I would have laughed at anybody who said so, but now we’re all strangely blasé about it. Hell, Principal Cinch went from ‘Magic exists?!’ to blackmailing Twilight into using magic to win.” She winced as she was reminded of her own part in that debacle. “Er, sorry about that, Twilight.”
“It’s OK,” the Twilight from Crystal Prep said, “I already forgave you and Indigo and Sour Sweet.” Sugarcoat had been a little bit harsh in her blunt assessments but hadn’t really been a jerk overall, and Lemon Zest was actually one of the nicer girls she had known even prior to the Friendship Games, so there was no need to reconcile with those two.
“Oh, oh, I know!” Pinkie Pie said, eyes lighting up with a fever. “Maybe God is actually a hands-on god and for whatever reason he’s decided to focus on Canterlot High School specifically and he makes it that we react to magic the first time we see it and after that we’re all like whatever? And then that also explains how the counterparts of all of us that Twilight knows all happened to be gathered in the same place when she first met us! Maybe it’s not even a single God but a pantheon of Gods and they all take turns plotting out our daily lives, like some sort of writing team! Heeheehee!” She laughed while jumping around, hyper as always.
For the second time that day, the group as a whole was left staggered at the full import of what Pinkie Pie had just said. The Crystal Prep students were quicker to recover, writing off Pinkie’s words as that of a madwoman on a sugar high. Applejack, however, just mumbled to herself, “Couldn’t be, could it? Then again, she was right the last two times with her ridiculous scenarios, so could it? Nah, I refuse to believe it.” Thus saving the world from a plot that would break down into a prolonged debate between free will and self-determination, she shook her head and started placing mental bets on which of the Crystal Prep students would break under Pinkie’s rambling onslaught first.
“You know, something bothers me,” Rarity said, drawing Sunset’s attention, as Pinkie Pie turned her attentions to Princess Twilight and Science Twilight both.
“What do you mean?” Sunset asked her fashionista friend.
“Weeeellll…” Rarity trailed off for a second, before pointing at the two Twilight’s, both of them nervously trying to avoid Pinkie Pie and her steadily worsening mannerisms, “If this world and the world you come from have counterparts, then that must mean there’s a Pinkie Pie in Equestria, right? What if the two Pinkie Pies were to meet?”
All idle chatter and attempts at conversation around the picnic blanket stopped, as everyone froze for the third time that day at the scenario Rarity had just pondered aloud. Everyone except for one. “That’s a GREAT IDEA!” Pinkie yelled out loud, somehow finding the arm length to grab all other twelve of the girls and one pooch on the front lawn in a single embrace, “Oh, oh, I could go to Equestria and meet my pony me I’d bet she’d love sugar and ice cream and cake and pie too and don’t forget cupcakes we could eat cupcakes ALL DAY LONG and I wonder if Other Pinkie Pie also has a pet ooooh I bet she’d just love to meet Gummy-“
Pinkie Pie would have continued her prattling, but for Princess Twilight putting one hand over her mouth. “Not happening,” She firmly said. “One Pinkie is already one too many, and we already had a too many Pinkies incident.”
“Two of her, that would be a disaster!” Sour Sweet said sounding concerned, being the first to respond after Princess Twilight, before muttering under her breath, “But some women just want to watch the world burn. Bring it!”
At last, the kernel was popping, and while Sunset needed to give it the right amount of butter and salt, and stop using movie analogies while she was at it, she decided this was the right moment to throw a rat’s head in Twilight’s bed. She still shuddered at the brutality of that scene, even if Rarity had assured her gently that the horse head was just a prop and not a real equine’s decapitated skull. “Actually, Twilight, I think it has better chances of happening than you think.”
“Huh?” was all Princess Twilight could muster.
“Princess, er…Celestia,” Sunset started, and winced as she heard the expected multiple surprised gasps behind her. Hearing that the Principal of Canterlot High’s counterpart was also a princess was due to surprise the Crystal Prep students. Tartarus, she didn’t even think her own friends knew it either. “When you gave me a new book to talk with her last time you were here, she and I got to talking again. She asked me if I was planning on ever coming home.”
“And are you?” Princess Twilight asked excitedly, even as Sunset saw disappointed looks on the faces of her close friends at Canterlot High as they clued in to what Sunset was talking about.
“Only for short vacations, I think,” Sunset said, making sure to make it clear before misunderstandings could crop up. “Magic has cropped up in this world, partly because of me, partly because of the Sirens. I have a duty now to defend this world from the consequences, and also to make sure Starswirl didn’t dump any more of Equestria’s problems in this world.”
“Wait, what?” Lemon Zest butted in, “Sirens, like those wicked singing fishwomen from the Odyssey?”
“Something like that,” Sunset replied, hastily continuing, “I want to see my parents and my sister again, don’t get me wrong. But the Princess and I had a little argument about the Sirens, and, well…”
“Well what? Spit it out!” Princess Twilight said in an annoyed tone, as all the other students were engrossed in the sudden conversation. Twilight wasn’t normally as aggressive as she was being, but her ears had perked up at someone saying they had been arguing with Princess Celestia, and she just couldn’t help herself.
“I told her that if Starswirl was allowed to dump the Sirens with impunity into this world, and if it’s not a problem for me to stay here, then people from this world should be able to visit Equestria!” Sunset blurted out.
Sunset was beginning to get a sense of déjà vu much like the time everyone had inadvertently made comments relating to her turning into a demon, as once more everybody froze up. Then they all started speaking over each other.
“That’d be pretty co-“
“What, and turn into a big bad nihilistic demon like Sparkles did? That’d be so awes-“
“I’d like to be a tre-“
“Ohoho, I wonder what it’d be like designing clothes for pon-“
“Would I be a pony, or a griffon, or maybe a DRAGO-“
“Yes, because meddling with the forces of portals after Twilight already just about destroyed the world would be such a great id-“
“No.”
Despite the impressive amount of jabbering the other girls were doing, Princess Twilight found it easy to cut the conversation off. “That won’t be happening, Sunset Shimmer. There are too many things that can go wrong.”
Sunset shrugged. She had expected that comment. It was a good thing she had prepared for this. “That’s a shame then, Twilight. I had already discussed this with Princess Celestia and gotten her blessings to do this, even charge money for people to visit Equestria, and we both went over the many things that could go wrong and decided the benefits far outweighed the few possible problems that might happen.”
Seeing Princess Twilight go “Uh, uh, uh” was incredibly satisfying to Sunset. She had scored a bullseye in a way Crystal Prep’s Twilight could only dream of.
Princess Twilight gulped. The thought of going against Princess Celestia in anything seemed to easily override any concerns she had earlier. “OK Sunset,” She said, “But I’m not going to let you do this willy-nilly. Let’s negotiate.”
Even as the other girls were chattering with one another about the possibilities of visiting Equestria and supposedly becoming ponies, some less excited than others, Princess Twilight and Sunset Shimmer found themselves working out the terms.
“No more than four new people at a time through the portal, ten overall” Sunset Shimmer said. “I’ve studied cross-dimensional physics, and the portal should be able to handle that many at once.”
“Three people, and only one extra who has been through before on top of that for four total,” Twilight objected. “I don’t think you’re wrong with your calculations, but I want to err on the side of caution.”
Sunset wanted to make a snarky comment about her and caution, considering Twilight had apparently gotten caught in a time loop, but decided not to. “Three and two,” She bargained.
“Fine,” Twilight said in an exasperated voice, rolling her eyes. “But you have to give me their names as soon as you’ve determined who’s coming. If you’re going to go with this preposterous idea of extra-dimensional relations, I want to have their counterparts at the mirror portal when they come through, if I can find them. Great, I guess that means I’m going to have to find Trixie no doubt.” She rolled her eyes again, and Sunset couldn’t blame her if Equestria’s Trixie was anything like her Trixie, who was a nice girl but still rather boastful. “And when Pinkie Pie comes she has to be the only new person, the incidents that will surely come from your Pinkie and mine meeting will be too stressful for any other new ponies.”
Sunset was quick to agree with that. Pinkie and Pinkie was certain to test the wits of wherever the mirror was, be it in Canterlot, Ponyville or the Crystal Empire. “Once a week for thirty-six hours,” She stated. “School and work weekends line up on this side of the portal and in Equestria. Depart at mid-morning Saturday and come back late Sunday evening.”
Twilight wrinked her nose. “With that sort of timeline, they’ll miss doing all their homework.” Seeing Sunset’s frown, she sighed, “Fine, fine! I’ll help you chaperone the first few myself, but after that I intend to find others who I can trust to help, except for Pinkie of course. And you might have to chaperone them on your own! But your plot is gout if you slip up on any of them!” She stabbed her finger into Sunset’s chest a few times to be clear on the point.
“Er…” Sunset rubbed her head, placing the phrase that Twilight had just used, not having heard it used in such a long time. Deciding to stay on the better side of tact and not tell her what the human equivalent was, she said, “Alright. There may be some people who want to eventually live in Equestria, and perhaps ponies or griffons or other creatures who want to live here. The latter scenario is a long time in the making, none of us here are exactly government officials, but the human world is large enough nobody will question a few disappearances.”
“That’ll be for Princess Celestia and Luna to decide,” Twilight said, adopting a contemplating countenance. “You will be talking to Princess Celestia, won’t you be?” Her leery smile hinted that yes, Sunset Shimmer was going to have to talk to the Princess eventually, and Sunset had no chance of backing out of that inevitable meeting. Former mentor and former student would have to talk pony to pony once again.
“OK, OK!” Sunset held her palms up in surrender.
Princess Twilight frowned, “Now, since there is nobody who has already been to Equestria by yourself obviously, that means only three people can come through the portal the first time. Have you decided who to take yet?”
“Actually, I have,” Sunset smiled. “Given who they are, I think I’ll be able to leave them with you for the weekend, and talk to Princess Celestia right away.” Turning her head, she picked out the three people in question she had in mind.
Twilight’s mouth opened in surprise, eyes widened. “Oh,” She said. Well, she supposed she should have expected this as soon as Sunset had started talking about this mad mad mad scheme. “One last thing,” She said aloud. “I suppose if you’re coordinating all of this while I merely find ponies and occasionally chaperone, I guess you’re kind of starting a business, aren’t you?”
“I gueeeeeeeess,” Sunset responded, not quite certain where the Equestrian Twilight was going with this.
Twilight smirked, “So shouldn’t your business have a name?”
“Yeeeeees,” Sunset said, dragging her words out, all while panicking and trying to come up with something clever.
The seconds dragged by, and Twilight continued to poke and prod, “Well, what is it?”
“Give me a minute!” Sunset snapped, the mischievous look on Twilight’s face not happening. Huddling up to herself, feeling the smooth leather of her jacket under her hands, she thought about it. Then she had an epiphany. “Yes, I have it now.”
“And?”
“My business!” Sunset pointed her finger up to the heavens, declaring it for all to hear, “Will be known as Sunset’s Extradimensional Tourist Agency!”
There was silence. Then-
“You really should have gone with a professional consultant for a name,” Sugarcoat said.
“Yeah, what she said,” said Lemon Zest, still rocking her head to the beat of the tunes on her headphones.
I wonder how many people will be able to spot the joke (well, reference) in the story title.
I have a number of humans that I will definitely be doing, and the rest can come by general request. Most humans I don’t have a specific order I will do them in, though I intend to do a very slow-burning overall story arc to this. HOWEVER, I will cater to some extent depending on comments. If people want a fan favorite or whatever to show up right away, I can do that.
The ‘no more than three humans at a time’ rule serves two purposes. In-universe, it means that the ponies can keep a handle on whoever comes through the portal, especially if one of those cases happens to be Pinkie Pie. As an author, it means I don’t have to keep track of too many characters at a time, like this chapter where there are thirteen humans and a dog all at once and I feel like I have to give them all lines 
Some changes that deviate from the end of Friendship Games or EG in general, mostly based on my personal preferences for how it should have turned out:
‘SciTwi’ never transferred to Canterlot High School. She did, however, go back into regular classes at Crystal Prep, making friends with the Shadow Five.
The time difference between Sunset Shimmer leaving Equestria and the first EG movie is 5 years, or two instances of ‘thirty moons’ passing. This is mostly just my headcanon about how Twilight shouldn’t have gotten her Cutie Mark, become Celestia’s student, done all her studies, then gone to Ponyville and done everything there in just two and a half years. Doubling it to five years sounds nicer in my head. Some of the dialogue in Friendship Games implies it really was only two and a half years, but it’s vague enough you can handwave it away (like Sunset Shimmer not knowing what the Friendship Games was not because she hasn’t been a human for four years but because she went elsewhere first before attending Canterlot High School).
Sunny Flare is nearly a blank slate. She has like three lines in the movie, one being ‘Seriously?’ and the other calling out to Principal Cinch when she tries to run away during Midnight Sparkle’s rampage. Hell, pretty much all the Shadow Five do, but Sugarcoat and Sour Sweet have pretty clear speech mannerisms, Indigo Zap is like Rainbow Dash on steroids, and Lemon Zest expresses a lot more personality through her mannerisms than her lines. I can work with those, but Sunny Flare has little to work with aside from general annoyance at Twilight, so I’ve made her basically with no quirks aside from a bit of a temper.
Also, since I haven’t watched anything past episode 13 of Season 5 (and episode 17 only just aired while writing this), this will probably break from canon with the second half of Season 5.
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This'll definitely be an interesting set of adventures.
One human/pony meeting that I'd love to see would be the two Derpies.
This can't end well but it might end with good things! If nothing else, this should allow Celestia to decide on the long-term strategy for dealing with Star Swirl's short-sighted 'interdimensional garbage dump' idea. That said... I really, really want to see Sci-Twi's reaction to the Canterlot Archives (especially the Star Swirl wing). I also suspect that there may be shenanigans with well-meaning relatives of Sunset Shimmer thinking that the nice young lavender unicorn is more than their daughter is saying!
I strongly recommend that Pinkie and Pinkie be only allowed to meet in the middle of a totally barren desert under a ten-layer force and energy shield. Just to be sure, you understand!
So excited for what will come next plz do pinkie!
Pffft, Is this supposed to be the pony version of your ass is grass?
Lemon Zest is pretty much Nowacking´s version of Vinyl Scratch.
6494955 Yes
6494557 Sunset may have a Twilight complex. Code Pinkie Square will be the Royal Guardspony's new code for a catastrophe of the highest order
First off, i want you to know that i REALLY like this so far, and anything i say after this is just because its a pet peeve.
Anyway, I'm sorry, but Sci twi having never transferred is a pointless preference, at least as far as this story's contents go, with the whole visiting Equestria thing. You ignore the fact that she HATED crystal prep, and wanted out of there to begin with. Maybe things are beter now, bUT that doesn't erase bad memories. You're essentially telling us you think you know better than the writers, and your version of the ending is superior.
Also, nowhere is it ever stated that the mirror had never opened between Twilight being a student and the events os Equestria girls, so your preference of five years probably fits more than you feel.
Im sorry if I sound harsh, but I believe that if you're going to fly in the face of canon, you should have a better reason than that it's just your preference, otherwise it has little to NO bearing on actual story content, regardless of if you think that's how it should have been.
S.E.T.A. welcomes you to Equestria!
6503524
Maybe, maybe not. Have to see if the story develops an actual plot beyond seeing who goes to Equestria and what they do while there. If SciTwi gets a character arc that could be a very relevant detail. I've only read the prologue so far, so I don't know what the other chapters have in store. If the other chapters are just "X,Y, and Z go to Equestria and here's what happened" then I may end up agreeing with you on this.
So? I have a lot of bad memories from my time in high school. But there were things I liked too, and since he's said that Twilight made friends with the Shadowbolts (the ones the audience sees/cares about, at least) it makes sense for her to stick around.
Don't be that guy. That comes across as kind accusatory, which isn't really called for. All he said was that he prefers the idea that Twilight befriended her teammates and stayed at Crystal Prep. There are lots of reasons he might prefer that ending that don't involve thinking he knows better than the actual writer(s) of the movie.
This reminds me of a scene from Sharing the Night and is totally something Celestia would do
High-school students visiting the magical land of the ponies... what could possibly go wrong?
I loved that Ghost-Busters reference. I expect this turn of events will at the least present a fun ride and some awkward situations... We shall see!
Also, it's really creepy sometimes how in tune Pinkie Pie is with what is actually happening... I laughed so hard when I got what she was saying and the near debate over free-will...
well played!